[Bug 10838] New: Make <u> conforming.

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=10838

           Summary: Make <u> conforming.
           Product: HTML WG
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: PC
               URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/obsolete.html#obsolete-but-
                    conforming-features
        OS/Version: All
            Status: NEW
          Severity: major
          Priority: P3
         Component: HTML5 spec (editor: Ian Hickson)
        AssignedTo: ian@hixie.ch
        ReportedBy: kennyluck@w3.org
         QAContact: public-html-bugzilla@w3.org
                CC: mike@w3.org, public-html-wg-issue-tracking@w3.org,
                    public-html@w3.org, public-i18n-cjk@w3.org,
                    public-html-ig-zh@w3.org


This was discussed in a long thread[1] three years ago. There was no consensus
and no response from the editor, but since some people like Maciej think we can
make <u> at least conforming[2], I would like to raise this bug to catch the
editor's attention.

Proper name mark, in Chinese [3] is a use case that was slightly mentioned in
the thread (see also an example picture[4]). The purpose of this mark is to
highlight *every* proper noun in some text to help the reader break words,
cause Chinese people don't use spaces for word breaking. Although it is no
longer popular recently, proper name mark is still used in some textbooks in
Taiwan (esp. children's Chinese textbook) and Hong Kong. Because the purpose
and frequency of using "proper name mark" in a piece of text is similar to code
highlighting, I personally don't think it's appropriate to use <mark> for this
purpose since the spec says "This (<mark>) is separate from syntax
highlighting, for which span is more appropriate." But then <span class="pn">
is probably too long. This is not yet a very prevalent use case because proper
name marks are often used in combination with vertical text and vertical text
is not yet popular on the Web.  

While I do strongly agree that an underlined text which is not a hyperlink
confuses the user in his/her browsing experience, there are HTML user agents
for which browsing the Web isn't the main purpose and hence the user might not
get confused. e-book readers are such examles.

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Dec/thread#msg268 
[2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Dec/0307
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proper_name_mark
[4] http://www.go8.com.tw/files/4168%200004.jpg

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Received on Wednesday, 29 September 2010 23:06:29 UTC